#godless punks

She rolled out of the way just before the limb pierced her bedding.

Seizing her sword from the ground beside her, Eun unsheathed it, leapt to her feet and swung at the monster with a strangled shout. The impact rattled through her arms as if her blade had struck metal, the sword clanging uselessly against a hard shell.

It slammed its limb into her stomach as if flicking away an ant, the impact sending her flying, the breath knocked out of her chest. Her body slammed into the wall of the rocky outcropping they had taken shelter under and her head took a hard knock. Sand kicked up around her as she fell to the ground, black fuzzing her vision.

Gasping, Eun struggled to push herself onto her hands and knees. Gunshots and yells and pleas for help drowned beneath the ringing in her ears.  Chaos consumed the camp as the creatures overran it, so many of them, twisted and horrible things. The pack animals were long gone, spooked off into the night. The merchants scrambled over each other to get away as the mercenaries fell one by one. Men she had traveled with for weeks, ate with, laughed with, trusted to watch her back at night—their insides were strewn across the sand.

Eun crawled across the ground. She was supposed to protect them. She was supposed to . . .

The ground shook beneath pounding hooves. Eun raised her head dazedly, taking in dark figures riding camels, rifles slung across their backs, the lower halves of their faces covered with bandanas. Her heart sank.

Bandits.

The leader at the front barked something Eun didn’t understand and hurled a bottle at one of the creatures. Glass shattered on its armored body and sent dark liquid cascading down. As the creature screeched and hurtled after him, the masked man banked sharply on his camel. One by one, the bandits followed suit in hurling bottles, luring the creatures away from the camp.

Moments before he could be speared on a claw-like leg, the leader of the bandits lit a match and threw it.

The monster let out a horrible shriek. Eun’s vision blurred.

The last thing she remembered was fire, consuming everything.

***

Violent sunlight burnt its way into Eun’s eyelids. She opened them and regretted it, a croak straining through her gritty throat. Her head throbbed and spun sickeningly. Clenching her fist in the sand, she forced herself up. 

The monsters. Memories of the previous night slamming into her, she inhaled sharply and staggered to her feet. Her sword. Where was it? There was no trace of it in the sand.

She staggered into the carnage. The campsite was a graveyard, lined with bodies both human and not. The charred remains of the awful creatures sent a shudder through Eun. She gave them a wide berth, almost afraid they would skitter back to life. With her hand cupped over her mouth, she swallowed bile as she stepped over gore. She eyed a bullet hole in a merchant’s forehead. If there had been any other survivors, the bandits must have finished them off.

Dead. They were all dead. Sightless eyes stared into the Urn Desert, accusing it of taking everything from them. The bandits had left nothing. The camels were gone. So were the packs with all their food and water. There was no trace of the silks and wares the merchants had been transporting. Eun had failed. With the merchants dead and the wares stolen, she would never be paid.

Eun sank to her knees. Alone. Miles of empty desert surrounding her in every direction. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she reached out and brushed her palm over Mal’s eyes, letting them close peacefully.

She could still hear his voice clearly. Sixteen? What’s a girl like you doing, getting caught up in this kind of business?

She thought of her uncle’s feverish eyes and the rattle in his lungs as he begged her to stay. Her little sister’s arms wrapping tight around her waist. Maybe they were right all along. Maybe she would die in the Urn, never to see her family again, all for nothing.

But Eun would be damned if she would lie down and let the birds pick at her bones.

The caravan had been less than a day out from the city of Srinas when they made camp. She could make it on foot. She stood, tears running down her cheeks, whispering an apology to the men she couldn’t save and couldn’t bury. And beneath the burning sun, she set out into the desert.

She would make it to Srinas. She would make it back home.